Bad news: Hero president forced by Republicans into spending even more money on this election

AllahpunditPosted at 4:53 pm on February 7, 2012

For a guy who’s allegedly so concerned about money in politics, he sure is good at getting money into politics. He broke his promise in 2008 to accept public financing once he realized he could raise three-quarters of a billion dollars. Despite his endless self-congratulation about not taking any dirty lobbyist money, he takes plenty of dirty lobbyist money. He demagogued the Chamber of Commerce before the 2010 midterms for not disclosing donors from whom it accepts cash, and now his own Super PAC is able to do that too. Before he’s done, he might succeed in building support on the right for campaign finance reform simply because Democrats and their union cronies are so remarkably skilled at running these big-money rackets that they claim to hate.

President Obama is signaling to wealthy Democratic donors that he wants them to start contributing to an outside group supporting his re-election, reversing a long-held position as he confronts a deep financial disadvantage on a vital front in the campaign.

Aides said the president had signed off on a plan to dispatch cabinet officials, senior advisers at the White House and top campaign staff members to make clear to donors that they should support Priorities USA Action, the leading Democratic “super PAC,” whose fund-raising has been dwarfed by Republican groups. The new policy was presented to the campaign’s National Finance Committee in a call Monday evening and was set to be announced Tuesday.

“We’re not going to fight this fight with one hand tied behind our back,” said Jim Messina, the manager of Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. “With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules. Democrats can’t be unilaterally disarmed.”…

The president will not attend fund-raising events, they said, but several members of his inner circle from the West Wing and his Chicago campaign headquarters have been designated to deliver speeches about the re-election effort. The intent is to imply his blessing for Priorities USA Action, which is run by Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney.

Note the boldface. I thought campaign coordination with a Super PAC is forbidden, but here they are holding campaign conference calls about O giving the green light to donors to start bankrolling Priorities USA. Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, actually has a guest post at HuffPo today describing how cabinet officials will be made available to the PAC for fundraising events. Not only will they refuse to play by two sets of rules, in other words, but apparently they won’t even play by one. That’s okay, though; the “no coordination” rule is a lame legal fiction which no one takes seriously in the first place. If we’re going to let donors spend unlimited money on PACs that are working for the campaigns, we’re better off cutting out the middleman and ending the contribution limits to the campaigns themselves. Let people donate what they want directly and make campaigns take responsibility for the attack ads that that money pays for.